


FitzJohnson

by InsominiacArrest



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alien Technology, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Multi, Polyamory, warning: I am not caught up on the series
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-10
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 00:18:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5395550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsominiacArrest/pseuds/InsominiacArrest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Skye knew a couple things<br/>1) She had touched an alien artifact,<br/>2) It messed with her head,<br/>3) It did something to Fitz (something always happened to Fitz didn’t it),<br/>4)...She was hopelessly and entirely in love with Jemma Simmons. Which was new.</p><p>Canon divergent AU from season two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Revelations

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I always promised myself I would finish/catch up to a series before I wrote fanfiction about it. But I couldn’t resist. 
> 
> So I wrote this during the first two episodes of season two. Spoilers for that, but mostly new stuff from there on.

Chapter One: Revelations 

She remembers grabbing the artifact. It was triangle, it had weird symbols on it (of course it did) and it immediately sent enough volts of electricity to her brain to fry an egg. Things went noisy, May yelled, Fitz was there.

And now her head hurt. Like really hurt.

She woke up in the infirmary with a the feeling of a pickax firmly planted in her frontal lobe. An internal combustion level suffering.

She opened her eyes to Simmons face hovering in front of her and team of scientists with clipboards looking at her like an amoeba under a microscope and-- had Simmons smile always been that brilliant?

Skye groaned, she tried not to, honestly, she was a big tough gal now, but some things are groan worthy and this right now was one of them.

“You’re awake!” Simmons cheers and touches her shoulder attentively. She had always been all touchy-hands on affection like that, but this touch felt like a warming hot pad that sparked a nervous breakdown in her right side.

What the hell?

“We can set her up to proceed with test 16B.” One of the lab rats says mechanically.

“Right.” Jemma nods. Skye’s brain slowly processes those words before opening her mouth.

“Nope. No tests.” She rolls over in bed. Cot. Thing. “Water.” She croaked.

After her headache, her throat was also a problem, a Serengeti cracking under the hot sun, and rasping over sandpaper problem.

“We really need to do some tests on you to find any side effects or major injury after the brain spike in activity.” Jemma explains in her spunky British accent.

“What about patient permission? You don’t have my permission. I need some water.” Being anyone's test subject seemed like a process she could use to avoid right now.

“But how do you feel?” She was still smiling, her mouth a fine bow of concern on a face built for waning and rising like the moon…Skye blinked five times in a row after that thought. That was more poetic than she was used to.

“Like shit. But nothing some Advil can’t fix.” She sits up in bed, the blood rushes out of her brain and the room spins in a clockwise direction.

“Whoa.”

She falls back onto the bed, the lab rats take quick and precise notes around her like an interesting carnival ride you watch as it falls apart.

She scowls at them, hoping Mays hard-ass training at least paid off in developing a killer glare.

“Can you guys not?” She asks eloquently, some of their eyes flick up from their work, but other than that they keep writing.

Skye reaches her limit, she braves the dizziness and swings her legs to the side of the bed, standing up in one fluid movement.

She quickly proceeds to have her legs turn to jelly and stumbles almost to the ground.

Jemma catches her mid-collapse, hands firmly around her shoulder. And now Skye’s _left_ side was having a nervous breakdown as Jemma's warm hands clutched her arm.

“There you go,” she soothes, “let's go get you some water, and then maybe we can look into some tests?” She offers.

“Maybe,” Skye grumbles, and lets Jemma lead her out of the room.

“Is it advised for her to be moving around?” One of the researches direct to Jemma before they reach the door. 

Jemma looks to Skye, “she’s moving fine.” It sounded like a scolding, “I’ll bring her back in a jiffy.” She smiles at them, the creaking one that was a little more menacing than comfort. Skye loves it.

Okay, she had to stop freaking out, and looking at Simmons mouth and feeling like really gay. Really, really gay.

Her mind wanders over over to how Jemma smelled like some sort of earl grey and a faint permanent aroma of chemicals.

  
“Did you hear me Skye?”

“What?” She tries to snap to attention.

“Oh dear.” Simmons furrows her brow.

“I’m so fine.” She tries to scrub that look off Simmons face. The one she suspected made Simmons wanted to wash Skye's face with a wash clothe and feed her three square meals a day in proper portions. She could live without that look right now.

“Do you remember what happened?” She asks slowly, watching carefully, her mind working in shifting cogs of comprehension.

“Yeah. We were in some freaky cave complex, ‘cause that’s obviously what we signed up for, and some alien yada, yada,”

“Yada.. Yada.” she repeats slowly.

“Alien frontal cortex stimulation device?”

“Well, that’s close enough.”

“And I grabbed on before some hydra goons came swinging in. And that turned out to be very, very dumb.” They make it to the kitchen and Simmons sits her down.

“Agreed.”

Skye gives her a surly look, then something else clicks in her head, her eyes light up.

“And it exploded or something...How's Fitz?”

Jemma lips become a thin flat line and eyes wander to the side of the room like lifeless dolls.

“Let’s get you that water.”

She pours her a tall glass and returns with it quickly, a certain crick and wobble to her step.

“Here you are.” She sings.

Skye takes the glass and guzzles it down in one long sip.

She took a break to breath and looked back up yo Jemma, “thank you.”

She claps her hands together, “Of course.”

Skye lowers her voice to a deeper timber, conveying she meant business, “No, but really, how is Fizt? We were both in the way of that...thing.”

Jemma’s smile cracks her face in two, and then fades into a sloping mountain of despair, she slumps into the chair next to Skye.

“He’s still asleep.” She breathes, “he shouldn’t of gone. We all knew he shouldn’t of gone.” Her voice wavers like an off key violin.

Skye nods ever so slightly, “how’s his head?”

She blinks at sky, “Brain scans are...fuzzy.” Jemma confirms, “we don’t know anything. Why?”

“Mine hurts like hell. The devil is playing racquetball in there if you know what I mean.”

“We really should do more examinations on you.” Simmons notices the irritation on Skye’s face, “but let me get another glass of water first!”

She moves to stand up again, “Jemma.” Skye grabs her hand to stop her. “He’ll be fine. I’m fine. It’s just your regular fair of trouble.”

“I can’t do this again.” Jemma’s voice cracks and tears start to form at the edges of her eyes, "I'm not..." Skye stands up swiftly and takes in her arms, holding her shaking form and crushing their bodies together.

They’d hugged before. Of course, but this was different. Skye had a sudden and irrational urge to hold on forever, anchor her to ground and stop her from splitting in every single direction through force of will alone.

She never wants to let go.

“Well. That's weird.” She reflects mutely as she lets go.

Simmons wipes her face and looks at Skye with renewed interests. “What was weird?”

“We’ll both be fine.” She comforts.

“That’s what’s weird?” The comprehensive thinking look is back on Jemma’s face.

She considers telling her the truth, she sighs, “maybe we should run those tests. My thoughts are little funky, and not the disco-tech lava lamp fun kind.”

She nodded, “noted.”

They went back to the lab and complete several brain scans. All of which came up empty. Fuzzy, blurry, they couldn’t get a read on the activity on the inside.

Simmons sits in the corner and pours over x-rays.

Skye shuffles over, “What’s going on doc?” Sky tries to sound casual as she approaches, hands in her pockets and totally not staring at her cute nails holding the pages up.

Jemma looks up, face small like a deer. A beautiful deer that knew biochemistry and would look hot wearing anyth-- okay, she had to control herself.

“Nothing good.” Simmons replies carefully. “I’m afraid we’re in the dark about this one.”

“Also,” Skye starts slowly, “did you happen to mess with my head when I was comatose?” She attempts to say it gently, but even she can tell it comes out too frank.

Jemma looks around nervously, “I ran some similar scans, and touched your head for any lumps or head injuries.”

“So that’s it.” Skye asserts to herself quietly.

“What’s it?” She tilts her head curiously.

“Um,” ‘your freaky fingers touched my head and now I’m insanely attracted to you’ was in the tip of her tongue, but she swallows it, “nothing.”

“Didn’t sound like--”

“I’m gonna go take another nap. In my room. Sleep off this head ache I mean.”

“Okay,” Simmons looks back to her work, “I’ll try to decipher as much as I can of this. Hopefully it holds the answer to waking Fitz up. Or um, figuring out what it might have done to you.”

“That would be good.”

“Yeah.”

“Good luck with the work.” She cheers and walks the opposite direction. Some primal instinct in her commands her to stay behind and help Jemma in lab. She has to remind herself she wasn’t a scientist and that's not really what she did, even she was internally urged to go back.

Skye repeats this to herself as she reaches her bunk.

She sheds her clothes quickly and climbs into bed, closing her eyes and, and she see’s Jemma, hair undone, shirt low, and eyelashes batting at her coyly. Skye’s eyes fly open, and heat pools in her gut. This was getting awkward.

Some part of her feels like she had always felt this way, the other part reflects on the fact this was this was completely new. She’d never felt this way before about even a guy, much less a girl. Shit.

She somehow falls asleep to a rhythmic pounding in her head and drifts off into a restless night.

\--------

She’s coming home, her clothes are damp and feet soaking wet from a puddle.

She’s carrying a book bag with her, dragging it on the ground and barely tall enough to reach the stair rails.

She makes her way inside and huffs a deep sigh. Her cheek hurts.

A women comes up, she smells like marigolds and butter, she takes Skye’s head in her hand and threads her hand through Skye’s hair affectionately.

“Hello dear.”

She starts to smile again, and feels. Safe.

She sits bolt upright in bed, gasping and clutching at the sheets. She pants and looks around quickly, where was the women? Where were the hills?

Her heart beat slows down and she comes back into a reality as no women or hills appear.

She takes a deep breath in thru her nose, “that’s...trippy.” She repeats to herself, forces herself to feel casual and not...alone.

She gets out of bed in her underwear, puts on a robe and starts walking around the facility. Her headache had faded into a dull throb instead of a sharp banging drum beat so she tries to concentrate.

She puts her thoughts in order, she knew 1) She had touched an alien artifact, 2) it messed with her head, 3)it did something to Fitz (something always happened to Fitz didn’t it), 4)...she was hopelessly and entirely in love with Jemma Simmons. Which was new.

Speaking of which, walking the halls of B block she runs into a soft sniffling sound, a distinct noise of someone choking back tears and failing.

“Jemma?” Skye knocks on the door impulsively. She couldn't just let her cry.

The sniffling abruptly stops, a light cough covering it up and then a clear:  
  
“Who is it?” Resounds.

“It’s me. Skye. Can I come in?”

Some noises of shuffling around and rearranging of items comes from within.

“One moment.” She calls, a slight wetness to the words. Like the gathering of dew on a napkin about to burst.

Skye taps her fingers to her thigh and tries to think about food. Coding. Coulson. Her parents.

Of course, all the thoughts still lead back to the door in front of her, and the girl inside.

The entry way finally opens, a messy looking women appears, eyes still puffy and the obvious cover up of tears lines plastered over a faltering smile.

“Can I help you?”

“Uh, actually,” Skye pauses to gather herself, “can I come in?”

“Of course,” Jemma steps aside. God, she was too polite, Skye would’ve kicked anyone's ass if they had interrupted her when she wanted to be alone.

Skye turns to Jemma, “Can I help you though?"

“No, no,” Jemma wipes her face with her sleeves, “I was just watching videos on neuroscience procedures... after Fitz woke up.” She said the last part like an afterthought. A dying secret.  
  
Skye perks up, “how is he?”

Simmons turns back to her laptop, a youtube video of lesson of the autonomy of a complex frontal lobe analysis was showing.

She doesn’t reply, she just sits back down on her bed and looks off into space.

“He’s not talking.” She says simply, “he’s not talking. Like before.” She repeats, her eyes glazed over and hollow, chased by shadows and a dilating pupil.

Skye approaches slowly, covering Jemma’s hands with her own.

“It’s not your fault.”

“I can’t help him...it’s happening all over.” She murmurs solemnly, fresh tears leaking from her eyes down onto her sweater.

“Shh.” Skye hugs her head, she had seen her cry too many times today. “Here.” She climbs into bed with her, clambering over her to lie them down on the bed. She holds her as she shook.

“It’s going to be okay. He’s alive.”

“Why did we let him go?” She whispers into her chest, “why didn’t you protect him?”

Pangs of guilt ricochet within Skye like little acid filled bullets wrecking her insides.

“Wait,” she gasps, “I didn’t mean that.” Jemma says quickly, pushing her away, Skye holds on tighter.

“No. You’re right. You’re right. I should have, I don’t know.” Her voice cracks unevenly too for a moment, “he wanted to go. He thought the item would help him.”

“It’s all my fault.” Jemma sobs, “this wouldn’t have happened if I swam faster. Gave the oxygen to him first...Or at least forced him to stay this time.”

She lies her down on her side, plastering the girl to her side.

“Don’t think like that…It’s not true.” A resounding notion that Fitz did the right thing at the bottom of the ocean speaks to her. She can’t pinpoint as to why.

“Here. Let’s watch something. Just you and me.”

Jemma sniffs, “I have work to do.”

“Not like this you don’t.” She teases.

Jemma laughs shallowly, chuckling to herself so the vibrations rattles Skye’s bones too. It was such a nice feeling, she should be laughing all time.

Skye torrents some videos from the internet quicker than you can say ‘cheap hack,’

“You like the Lion King?” She asks.

Jemma leans up against and wipes her face, “I _love_ the Lion King.”

They turn on the movie and Jemma makes short commentary the whole time, the lion roars are fake and actually tiger roars, female hyena’s are bigger than the males, so they got that wrong. Animals don’t talk.

The last one got Skye laughing.

It all felt natural good. Like she should be by her side forever and ever.

She massages little circles into her side and wants desperately to lean down, hold her closer, feel her hair. Maybe… kiss a little? That wakes Skye up.

She hadn’t felt such a compulsion since she was in 10th grade and her Comp Sci teacher said he saw ‘a lot of potential’ in her.

“Thank you.” Jemma says quietly, she looks up at her through her lashes, “you haven’t been this nice to me in a long time...You know, I am sorry I left.” Her body shakes, “I had that mission. I heard you thought I just betrayed you.”

Some part of Skye wants to bite back, ‘you just didn’t want to be here. We get it.’ Coldly, offhandedly. And then wrap herself up in a little box and stop looking at Simmons all together. Become the black shiny squares of a compartment and push herself off the bed.

However, a much louder voice in her head called out, ‘I’m in freaking love.’ And that was a new one.

“Well,” she compromises, “I could still be mad about that.” Jemma wilts in her arms, “but I guess I can move past that if you…” Kiss me? “stay loyal to the team.” She finishes like a robotic women bent on becoming world champion of wooden responses.

“Of course!” Jemma smiles like the sun came out.

Skye kisses her head, and then her cheek, and then--and then she gets carried away.

“Um,” Jemma expresses when Skye pulls away, her large eyes darting around in Fight or Flight mode, she’d just been kissed on the mouth. By girl. By a Skye, A girl that was her friend. And was pissed at her just yesterday.

“Welp. This awkward.” Her brain goes into high alert, “That was.. meant for your cheek I mean.” Skye covers up as smoothly as she can. “Which is still pretty gross and gay, but I guess I’ll forgive you this one time for moving your head.”

Skye’s head was filled with lips. And hair. And the sweetness of the kiss. It was salty, so salty and soft.

Jemma chuckles genuinely, snapping Skye out of the aftershock of the ‘kiss-zone’

“I’ll consider it a welcome back kiss.” She smiles, actually smiles, for her, and it’s kind of the best day of Skye's life? Okay, this had to stop.

Jemma leans and kisses her cheek, “welcome back, me I guess.”  
  


"We’re glad you're here.” And Skye is feeling like a broken oven inside. Hot and bothered.

They recline silently in the bed and Jemma’s breathing becomes shallow and steady as she falls into a deep slumber on top of her. Like a princess.

God, Skye had it a bad. And all from a stupid alien machine that probably meant it was fake, totally fake and...she didn’t want to think about it.

After all, she never felt this way before.

Skye dozes in the uncomfortable bed, the top of Jemma’s head bumping her chin and keeping her neck bolt upright, but she soon finds herself drifting off eventually.

A dark blankness yawns in front of her, a void of nothingness that sucked her words, her breath and she had feeling it would eat her alive. She trembled in its wake and then she starts to fall.

She tried to cry out, but it swallows her throat and her mind is empty, empty, empty.

Everything sounds like static and she can’t scream. No one cared if she screamed.

Skye’s eyes fly open but she remembers herself not to yell or move. Jemma was on top of her.

She needs to stand up though, shake off the vision, so she manages to shift Simmons aside and wiggle to freedom without waking her.

“Sleep tight.” She coos, yes, actually coos for some reason. May must never know.

Skye wanders the halls again, trekking through the quiet paths like some midnight shadow. It was a bummer.

She crosses her arms and reaches a corridor before losing her will to get lost. She leans against the wall and sighs, sliding down it and staring up at the ceiling.

Minutes pass, maybe even ten of her sitting on the floor moping, before she hears the soft padding of footsteps behind her.

“Hey,” she calls out to the figure, a curly haired lithe man comes into view, Skye’s eyebrows raise, “you’re up. And walking around.”

He doesn’t respond, just stares flatly ahead, eyes like glazed donuts and empty skies. Skye can barely stand it.

“Don’t suppose you know what’s happening?” She asks slowly, he doesn’t reply, Skye stops looking at him, “but I suppose you are not talking.”

She gets to her feet and sighs, “better put you back to bed.”

She grabs his shoulders, trying to guide him properly back to the infirmary.

The second she touches him his hands fly to her wrists, locking them in an iron grip.

Skye’s eyes open wide, “Fitz?”

“The tetrahydro energy emitter, which is what I’m calling it, has a back flowing current that I could reverse engineer with the right decoding of its numbered encryption. It has a binary code that is pulsing like a hydro-electric current, but acting like a brave wave. We should look into it.” He says all in one breath and curls and uncurls his hands in the process.

“What?” Skye blinks at him, she hadn’t heard him speak so many words in a row since...Fitz gives her a cheeky grin, “you’re back.” She breathes.

“Something like that.” His smile broadens.

“But you’re...!” She wraps her arms around his neck, “not that you went anywhere, but you know, you just said a lot, and your hand, I thought…” She trails off as she feels herself about the ramble.

“I understand.” He holds himself taller, “I’m pretty excited about it too.”

“How?” Skye finally asked.

“Well,” his eyes cloud over, “something to do with that tetrahydro energy emitter...okay maybe that could be a better name.”

“EET. Better than triangle thing of doom which is what I was calling it.”

Fitz hugs her again, tighter, “I missed you.”  
  
“It never left.” He releases and looks her in the face, her smile fades, “what’s the catch?”

“Well,” Fitz leans back slightly, “from what I’ve observed,” he frowns, “have you been having any strange thoughts? Perhaps dreams about a, hmm, shirtless Grant Ward or the insides of a van?”

 **  
** Skye freezes, the pieces sliding together. “Okay. We need to talk.”


	2. The Mind is a Terrible Thing

“How do you do it?”

“Do what?” Fitz asks without looking up.

“Feel this way. All the time.”

“Talent really,” he hand waves her, “whatever ‘it’ is.”

“Come on. Dude. All the Simmons stuff?”

He eyes her suspiciously, having caught his full attention from pouring over the x-rays.

“It’s like being a hall mirrors of her face 24/7.”

“Oh, that’s not fair.”

“It’s your brain,” She snorts.

“Really? And fantasizing randomly about a naked Captain America is any better? I was _sleeping_ Skye.”

“I guess I would peg you for more of an naked Ironman kind of guy.”

“I mean, if I had to choose,” he pauses and then shakes his head, “wait, what am I saying.”

Skye opens her mouth to respond until a creaking comes from the the down stairs. They both freeze, eyes darting back and forth between them.

When nothing else sounds they both exhale, “probably just the Bus adjusting. We still need to fix some of it.” Fitz blinks and then gains a slow smile as something dawns on him, “I could fix it.”

You give him a half smile.

They had decided to escape to The Bus to plan out their next move, think this through a little bit. They were now very good at thinking in time, since you know, they may or may not be sharing a brain.

“Now,” Fitz says slowly as holds up the x-ray. “I don’t think it’s telepathy,”

“-because then we’d be exchanging thoughts instantaneously.” When she started using words like instantaneously she did not know, though she could guess.

“Yes, exactly, but we certainly aren’t the same as we were.”

She nods sagely, “You now have fine motor skills back and some sick coding skills, right?”

“Yes, very sick.” He repeats and then wrinkles his brow and repeats ‘sick?’ under his breath.

“And I can now know what Jemma’s favorite smell is, it’s lilac isn’t it? And warm bread.”

“This is all very uncomfortable for me you know.”

“I would hope it wouldn’t feel normal.”

“And you should have other attributes, such as the accent you are sporting, did you know you were saying short a’s? Nevermind.”

“Yeah, and I felt like building a fully functional robot last night.”

He perks up, “we should build a robot, you could, I suppose we could both do its coding, and program it to-”

“Analyze people's DNA from long distance to gauge if they have special.”

“Precisely,” Skye feels like fist bumping him.

“FitzJohnson it is.”  

“Wait, wait,” Fitz shakes his head, “we’re getting ahead of ourselves.” He looks back at the x-rays, “we don’t know what any of this means.”

“Yeah. We should go talk to Jemma. Like I said.”

Fitz purses his lips and looks at the floor, Skye almost rolls her eyes, “talking to her won’t be so bad. It’s actually pretty great.”

“Easy for you to say, but no, that’s not it.” He takes a deep breath.

“Is it the visions of naked Captain America? Because I swear you can have those on your own once we’re disconnected, I mean I have already thought of Mac at random like-”

“I just want some more time,” he interrupts quietly.

“Time?”

“Like this. So I can help the team some before...they reverse it.”

Skye doesn’t know what to say, instead she reaches out her hand and squeezes his.

“We can talk.”

He huffs and nods ever so slightly.

“Now,” he claps his hand together, “we should compare memories.”

Skye groans, “do we have to?”

“Well, if we want to understand how deep this goes, yes. St. Agnes was a brown house?”

“Sure, I guess. I try not to think about it. Your favorite pair of shoes got ruined in the was when you were 14. You cried.”

He huffs indignantly at her, “well you tried to play football when you were 8 and kicked two people in the face before forcing a third one eat grass.”

“You tried to build a death ray. All it did was make fried eggs.”

“I’ll have you know they were delicious eg-”

They are interrupted in their brain comparison when clear footsteps come from the bay. Fitz and Skye exchange a look.

“What are you two doing in here?” Before they can move May comes up the stairs and looks at them, “you two aren’t due for a mission.”

“We were just um, what’s the word,” Fitz snaps his fingers and looks off into the distance, mimicking frustration.

Skye quirks her mouth up in confusion.

“What are you doing?” She whispers at him.

“Just um,” he stares off into space and messes with his fingers.

“It’s okay.” May says, “I know you may want to talk about what happened in El Salvador.”

“Right.” Skye says quickly, “all the brain triangle stuff.”

“How are you two feeling?”

“Fine.” Fitz says.

“Like death.” Skye says at the same time.

He elbows her and glares slightly.

“Well, just stay on base, we don’t want you two going anywhere for now.”

They nod in tandem.

“Now.” She folds her arms. “Get off my bus.”

They get up and shuffle off the plane.

“What was that? You are not forgetting words now.” Skye asks about Fitz’s acting.

“I want it be a surprise,” he whispers, “something to show them first, to prove I’m better all the way.”

“Man, you don’t have to prove yourself.”

“I want to. I’m going to the lab.” He declares and turns in the opposite direction, “it should be fairly empty right now.”

“Cool. I’m going to go talk to Jemma.”

He looks behind him and rolls his eyes, “Just don’t say anything stupid and reveal us. I’ve had years of practice with what you’re feeling, try to keep it under wraps.”

“Yeah, and how _do_ you deal with it? You never told me. Cause my heart is going crazy, and I’ve literally never had so many thoughts about one person since I got obsessed with N’Sync in 7th grade.”

“I remember.” He begrudges.

“And it's not even that, it’s all how pretty she is and what tie is she wearing today, it’s insane.”

“Goodbye Skye.” He turns around and leaves her.

She blows air out her nose and then gets to making her way through the complex.

Jemma was in her room, eating in peace when Skye shows up.

“What’s shakin’?” She approaches slowly, and tries not to sound like an 80s cliche. It may not be working. Jemma puts down her tea.

“Oh! Skye, just the person I wanted to see.”

Skye smiles broadly, everything was good and nothing hurt.

“I’ve had time, and I think I know a few more things about at least treating the increased brain activity.”

“Oh?” Her smile falters, Fitz did not want the process reversed yet…

“Yes. I think the reason scans are coming back blurry is because the neurotransmitters are firing at an exaggerated rate.”

“So that the brain signals moving across the chemical synapse are moving so quickly the machines can’t pick up them.” Skye notes without thinking.

“Exactly! Have you been reading up on this?”

“Er, yes.” She replies lamely. Alright Skye, keep the new bigger brain under wraps too.

“Well, either way, if we just calibrate the machine to pick up on faster and more dense signal transmissions between neurons we may be able to…” Skye spaced out, Jemma was such a smart, magical humanoid-unicorn, it may have taken Fitz’s brain to trigger that realization but God it sounded true.

“What do you say?” Simmons pauses to ask.

“Hmm?” Skye tries to listen to words again instead of staring at her mouth.

Jemma leans forward, “Did you just say something about a unicorn?”

“Um, like you were saying, fiddle with the notches and make it look at our brains more closely, and uh, get the right readings.”

“Yes, of course. And then you and Fitz will be right as rain once we know what we’re dealing with.”

“About that…”

“Yes?”

“I mean, this it might not be a bad thing...The new thoughts aren’t so bad.” Being in love was fun and Fitz was better.

“Oh uh, weren’t you saying some of them were hem, funky fresh weird?”

Skye snorts and starts laughing, “I can’t believe I got you to say that.”

Jemma flushes, “It could be alien thoughts from an alien device I mean. We have to be careful.”

“They sure are alien.” Skye repeats to herself.

Skye gets the ‘science af’ look on her face, “really? That might be worth investigating.”

“Do want to get something to drink?” Skye says quickly.

“Well, I mean,” Jemma gestures at her tea and porridge. “I could use the company though. In fact, I could cook you something for all your trouble in studying up on this too.”

“That’s so thoughtful.” Skye gushes uncharastically. “Did anyone tell you that? You are like super sweet.”

She swears she sees Jemma go red in the face, “Well, cooking is just chemistry’s domestic cousin.” She wipes her face and stands up, “It’s no problem... I’ll go now.”

She hurries out the room, Skye stands there dumbly for a second, watching her leave fixedly, “wait! I’ll help you in there.”

She trails after her like a love sick puppy. This was getting embarrassing, but not so bad, Fitz repressing all this was the bad part she figured.

\---------------

Skye helped Jemma make tamales per Skye’s request and it was fun, even if Jemma kept dropping things for no reason, and Skye called her a ‘powder keg of everything good in the world’ at one point. As joke. Yes, joke.

They ate were eating (Jemma having a second lunch), when Mac walked in, he looked between the girls,

“You’re going to want to see this.”

Jemma put down her fork, “what is it?”

“It’s Fitz.”

Jemma got up so fast Skye is surprised is surprised she doesn’t fall over.

They fast walk down the hall and she can’t help but share in their apprehension.

They make their way to the lab, Simmons at a fast walk that outpaced all of them.

Fitz was standing in the center of the room with pages of blueprints surrounding him like a tomb of paperwork and scribbling furiously. Bobbi was standing at the side of the room watching with her eyebrows raised.

“What is going on?” Jemma asks slowly.

Bobbi turns to them, “Fitz is designing me a new hand gun.”

“More pressure,” he murmurs, “blast them off their feet like wily coyote.”

Skye laughs at the image and everyone else looks around in confusion.

“Oh,” he stops, “and I have other designs I want to start building,” he steps aside and pulls up several 3-D models from the table. They were all sloppy but detailed.

“Oh Fitz.” Jemma breaths, her eyes wide.

Mac blinks several times too, “Oh Fitz is right.”

“Yes, yes, Fitz, now look, I have a brain wave jammer, it could stall someone into a coma if you have the right frequency.”

He shows them his designs one by one. Coulson walks in at some point and they all stand around in mute shock. Skye can’t stop smiling.

“Turbo,” Mac finally gets in from his fast talking, “that triangle really did a upgrade on you.”

“Yeah.” Bobbi agreed, “who new alien tech was going to do, uh,” she gestures up and down at him.

“Yes, well. For now. And it’s not without a few side effects.”

“Are any of your thoughts out of the ordinary?” Jemma asks anxiously.

“You mean outside of being clear again,” Fitz glances at Skye meaningfully, “not that bad.”

“Well,” Coulson states, admiring what looking like upgrades for Lola on the desk, “we need to keep an eye on this.” He claps Fitz on the back, “but it's good to see you the like this again.”

“Working again you mean.” Fitz grins but no one meets his eye.

“Is that our robot?” Skye changes the subject as she pulls up a floating little scanner with three minute propellers. It was just as she imagined it--which was creepy.

“Uh, yes, it just needs to know what we’re looking for and some basic directions.”

Skye’s eyes light up, she felt excited in a different kind of way, “it looks good, but did you consider rounding this part to make it more dynamic…” Skye goes into the weirdest rant of her life with Fitz nodding and agreeing with her as they reinvented the robot in real time.

The surrounding group just steps back as they work.

“Ahem,” Coulson clears his throat. “I see it worked on Skye as well.”

“No, she’s just been holding out on us.” Fitz murmurs sarcastically. “Yeah, it looks like.”

“That’s pretty impressive right there.” Mac comments as he examines their work.

“FitzJohnson at work.” Skye shrugs and Jemma steps up.

“FitzJohnson,” Jemma repeats, her voice somewhat strained and eyes soft like melting chocolate.

“I mean, for now, FitzJohnson.” Skye backtracks.

“Yes, yes, now if you could clear out, I have more work to do.”

Coulson nods and then whispers something to Bobbi on the way out, no doubt to keep a closer eye on the both of them.

Coulson proceeds to pause at the door, “I’m happy for you Fitz.”

Fitz nods in acknowledgement and they leave him to his work.

Jemma and Skye break off to sit back down in the kitchen.

“That was...something else.” Jemma breaths solemnly.

“It’s pretty awesome. Fitz got his mojo back, and I’m pretty sure I can build a flux capacitor from scratch now?”

“That’s all very good, but we have remember this alien, alien influence and we know what that did to Coulson.”

“Right.” Skye repeats and then frowns, “but if his brain is un-damaged again…” Because of whatever Skye transferred to him.

Jemma groans and buries her face in her arms as she rests her head on the table, “this is all very complicated...and sudden.”

Skye rubs her back comfortingly, “I’m sure it’ll be alright.”

Simmons glances up at her sheepishly, “do you think things will go back to how they used to be?” She asks, just barely audible.

Skye pauses, “nothing goes back.” Especially since Fitz is now taking her role as a sarcastic shit and Skye was in a flush of romance and trying to untangle whose memories are whose.

“But now we can more forward.” Jemma smiles creackingly, “you two getting along so well is very nice to see though.”

Skye almost rolls her eyes, Simmons was always a terrible liar.

She settles for looking Jemma up and down and moving a few steps in, “we can all get closer now.”

She shifts uncomfortably and knits her eyebrows together, “well, I’m going to go calibrate the machine. You should rest or...think about your thoughts.”  

Skye nods slowly, “I’ll see you for dinner?”

“Yes.” She grins brightly, “Maybe we’ll make something together again.” They part ways with Skye in high spirits.

She goes back to her bunk and starts writing hearts on the wall that turn into engines.

\----------------

Skye’s new favorite guilty activity was delving into Fitz’s memories.

No, not just the daydreams of The Black Widow and Pepper Pots embracing each other in an elevator while she single handedly fights off hydra with a mechanized force field she invented. Or the one where Jemma is in nothing but a lab coat and giving her bedroom eyes.

Those certainly pushed her to a strong 5 on the Kinsey scale, but weren't what made the whole accident worthwhile.

No. The ones where someone cooed to her, tucked her into bed at night and read her Harry Potter until she fell asleep.

The ones where a women proudly stood by her child up on the science fair podium and kissed her head and told her how proud she was.

The ones where she gave her a sweater and a new computer for Christmas. A real Christmas.

She felt guilt for delving into Fitz’s thoughts like that, violating what should be private, but she can’t help it.

Skye keeps trying to come up with a game plan to go to Scotland to visit his mom. She had a feeling Miss Fitz wouldn’t mind. God, she could hope.

She was lying in bed, imagining a birthday party, other kids didn’t come but Skye couldn’t give less of a fuck, her mom, she liked to pretend her mom, took her to the movies and they made a cake together.

She talked to entire time and Ms. Fitz smiled and asked her more questions about it.

What she thought, her new ideas, anything and really listened.

Skye was constantly on the brink of breaking down when Ms. Fitz said, “You are so remarkable, dear.” Or something like that.

She was in bed with those thoughts of maternity when she hears gasping breaths. The sad kind.

It wasn’t Jemma this time, but Jemma’s voice soon carries through the halls.

“What’s wrong Fitz?”

  
A rattling breath thick with emotion responds, “It’s nothing.”

“Now,” Jemma scolds with one word.

“I’m just not used to it.” He replies.

“Used to what? What’s going on? Is it.. odd thoughts?”  
  
“Nothing alien, no.” He reassures quickly.

“Tell me right now what they are. We have to be sure.”  
  
“Alone. ‘m not used to it.”

A long pause stretches between them, it might be a hug. “You’re not alone.”

  
He heaves a sigh, “it’s not like that. I’m going to go back my bunk.”

Skye covers her head with her pillow, if she had gotten Fitz’s mom, he must have got her childhood. Pangs of guilt and...relief resound like a bugle insider her.

Someone understood now.

More rattling breaths come from the room next to hers, Skye is unable to handle much more of it and gets up to go to the common room. She wasn’t just going to listen to Fitz suffer over Skye’s childhood.

She turns on the TV in the empty room.

An episode of South Park plays and she spaces it out.

“How do you stand it?”

  
She jumps, Fitz stands in the entrance way, face still wet and blank.

“Um,” Skye looks for an escape route, she wasn’t ready for this conversation. “What?”

“You asked me how I stood it. But having an unrequited crush isn’t this.”

“Heh, I know the urge to go on Reddit and troll people is an obnoxious one but after you get it out of the way,” She whistles, “it feels much better.”

“Stop it.” He comes up to her and sits on the couch, “I know exactly why you do that and it’s not what I’m saying.”

“Well, maybe you should try it, humor helps the constant parade of angst go down.”

“How are you still...positive? We were so young. And every single house...everyone single one left us...”

“Alone. I know.” She doesn’t look at him.

He suddenly grabs her face, “I can’t stand it.” He lilts in an almost American accent, then before Skye can pull away he places a kiss on her mouth.

It was weird, it was a lot like kissing herself. Like when you're just out of the shower naked and feel hot and good about yourself and kiss the mirror.

Fitz pulls away “you’re _not_ alone.”

Skye blinks several times then looks away. She didn’t know what to think.

A low gasp comes from the doorway. Skye turns her head quickly, Jemma was standing in the doorway, of course she was, because Sky’s life sucked.

“I was just coming to see if you wanted to make dinner...never mind, I’m just going.”

“Oh god,” Fitz mutters before springing to his feet, Skye follows, “wait, Jemma.”

“No, no, I understand.” She says in one breath.

“No you don’t.”

“Yeah, trust me, you don’t.” Skye makes an understatement.

They follow her down the hall.

Fitz grabs Jemma’s wrist as she leaves, “what then, what is it?” Jemma looks directly at Skye, “Because last time I checked first Skye was flirting with me and then kissing you in the common room.”

“Flirting?” Fitz’s eyes flit to Skye in exasperation.

“Yeah, that is Fitz, but also me maybe? Anyway, being in love is hard and you can’t blame me.”

“Skye!” Fitz bursts out.

“What’s going on here?”

Fitz releases Jemma’s wrist.

“Our brains our intermingled. That’s why we’re acting so weird. And why my head is better.”

Jemma tilts her head to the side, “how would Skye’s brain do that? Once brain tissue is dead, it’s dead.”

“Wow, sensitive much?”

“No. She’s right. We don’t know what’s going on here.”

“But...sharing a brain?” Jemma purses her lips and then whispers. “That sounds very sci-fi.”

“Yeah, it’s interesting.” Skye relents slowly.

Simmons bites her lip and then leans forward, a curious glint in her eye, “What’s it like?”

“I’ve craved more chocolate in my life than ever.” Fitz says offhandedly.

“Betty Gerald was my, our, first kiss, and sometimes I wake up angry at her for saying we sucked at it.”

“Come off it, you had a horse phase where you ate raw oats Skye.”

“Don’t make me bring up George.” She retorts heatedly.

 **  
** Jemma stops them, “okay. I can see this is complicated.” They nod in agreement. “Let’s take you to my lab.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter has 80% chance of upping the rating lmao


End file.
